Pink, Bling, Flowers and Pepsi Max

What do you give a birthday girl who loves Bling, Pink, Flowers and Pepsi Max?

Well doh - what else but a Pink Bling Chilly Bin (aka Eski or Cooler Box - depending on where you are from)!

So I started with this...

The I painted a pink undercoat over the outside.

Using my finger, I wiped over 3/4 of the outside surface with Magenta Inka Gold.

Then I added our white rhinestone chain to the top of the Eski and the bottom of the lid.

 

Decorating the lid are layers of pink gardenias, pink flowers and large pink roses, antique silver leaf charms and large bronze leaves - all arranged in the centre of the lid.




I coloured our large leaf charms (which are bronze and not matching the theme), with Inka Gold.

 

Inka Gold is dry within a minute - love it! 

 

Then I painted the Eski with Claudine Hellmuth mulit-medium to protect it from the elements.

To personalise it, I added the recipients name using chipboard letters.

The ugly blue string handle had to go - so I covered that with 2 different shades of pink tulle, using wondertape to secure

I kept the sides fairly simple and non-dimensional for when not in use and for ease of storage.

Ta da - we have a personalised, Pink Chilly Bin / Eski / Cooler Box.

PS Don't forget our rhinestone chain is on sale until the 15th March.

Cards in the Limelight

Loving the left-overs from my stash of Limelight this week! 

While I still had an epic mess on my desk after finishing my garden layout I decided to use a bit of spare time to make a few cards that could be put away and used in the future.  I'm a ''simple & fast''  kind of cardmaker, so these are....both simple and fast!

First I made this one, using a Twiddleybitz 13 x 13 Black card and envelope. The patterned papers are Vibrant and the reverse of Dawn, with the punched butterflies and the die cut journalling spot coming from the reverse of First Step.

Next I went for a generic card for a young boy. This one is again a Twiddleybitz 13 x 13 Black card and envelope and again very simple. The patterned paper is the reverse of One's Journey, used as a background and as a mat around the sentiment. Both the picture of the robot and the sentiment are mounted on a bit of Coredinations Nightfall cardstock and dimensional tape. I finished it off with a Gadget Gear Cog Charm on a piece of string. How good are these little cogs!!! Love them!

Finally, a Christmas card. If you are going to use green at any time of the year it will definitely be at Christmas. This time it's a Twiddlebitz C6 card and envelope. White is out of stock right now, but Tracy has cream, black and kraft in the store. 

After covering the card with the reverse of First Step I added two scalloped strips, one from the reverse of Today and one from Bright, plus a line of Red Velvet Ric Rac. Mounted on dimensional tape over the top of that is a stamped and coloured christmas mouse on a die cut circle, a small white flower that was floating around on my desk and a cute Red Scroll Felt Star. The finishing touch....some Crushed Ice Sugar Beads for a Christmas-sy, snowy sparkle.

Michele xx

Kaisercraft Limelight in store now with some DT inspiration

Just arrived - serene botanicals and new templates.

Life in the LIMELIGHT

Nothing is quite as peaceful and calming as green botanicals and fresh smelling flowers.  Let "Limelight" bring an element of serenity to your next project with its natural charm and beauty.  Kaiser are calling it gardening without the dirt and bugs.

Also in-store now are new Kaisercraft 12 x 12 Templates.
Very popular styles and at the great price of only $6.50

DT's Michele and Geli have been creating up a storm with the new Limelight ...

 Hi Ladies,

Michele here again, this time with a layout using Kaisercraft's LIMELIGHT collection.

 

LIMELIGHT is very green - and green is not really within my comfort zone - but in some way these papers reminded me of how deep and rich the colours are in my garden at the end of summer; and the sentiments expressed in the quotes remind us to take time out and enjoy the small moments in life. So I went outside and took a few photos and this layout was born. I have to admit that it is an unusual one for me, and I'm not sure I even like it very much ... but anyhow, here's how I put it together.

At first I was going to use the reverse of VIBRANT as my background ... a no brainer really, great for backgrounds with its grey woodgrain pattern, but I had a moment of inspiration (or not) and decided that - since we have a brick wall and not a paling fence at our house - I would use Morter from the Base Coat Collection instead. 

A large piece of the olive green reverse of LEARN covers a bit more than half of the page. The brick pattern in the top and bottom corners was created using the Twiddleybitz Bricks Template and Ferro Metal Effect Textured Paint in both Copper and Iron.

 

The leaf shapes over the bricks are courtesy of some sticky- backed vinyl masks I have had forever. It would be just as effective to use a paper mask if you have one of them. I stuck them to the page first, then peeled them off (carefully) while the paint was still wet to give the impression of foliage against the brick wall. 

 

After the paint had dried, I decided that the bricks really were way too bright for me. Maybe I should have stuck with the paling fence after all?? LOL! I stuck my now washed masks back onto the paper for some more leaf shapes and gave the whole background a thin whitewash of Gesso, letting some of the white pool in the cracks between the Ferro bricks and thus blurring the edges of the green paper a little.

 

 

You can see where the leaf masks were in the photo below...

 

 

Next, I raided the LIMELIGHT COLLECTABLES pack and strung three tags with appropriate quotes onto a piece of string, added two thin banners to mix up the lengths. They are all mounted on Dimensional Tape, which allows the string to loop through them freely. On the end is an Antique Silver Leaf Charm which I coloured with a light rubbing of Jade Inka Gold. A ticket and another of the banners form the base of the small cluster at the top of the page.

 

My photos all have a border of distressed Core-dinations Nightfall cardstock. In turn, they are mounted on two layers of the reverse of FIRST STEP - one is attached with a small bulldog clip, one with a bright green paperclip and the middle one is wrapped in string with another Inka Gold Jade coloured Antique Silver Leaf Charm dangling from it .

 

Tucked in-between the layers at the bottom are three patterned strips. The numbers and the butterflies are both manufacturer strips from the bottom of the patterned papers and the tape measure is a sticker from the LIMELIGHT 12 x 12 STICKER SHEET. I cut mine in half lengthwise to make it thinner. Also in there, is a pediment die cut from the reverse of DAWN.

 

My photos are very busy looking, so I kept the embellishments as simple as I could. Various leaves -  some are die-cut from the LEARN paper and some are either fussy cut (also from LEARN) or taken from the COLLECTABLES pack and of course some flowers. Three Mini Gardenias - green, olive and white - and a few cream and wine Cherry Blossoms.

 

There is also a wooden heart tucked in there - inked with a bit of Victorian Velvet on the edges and covered in Crackle Accents. The crackle was taking ages to dry in the rainy weather, so I blasted it with the heat gun to get this milky, bubbled effect. A few glass cabochons finished it off - tiny ones that look like water droplets and a larger one glued over a tiny bird from the COLLECTABLES pack.

 

Embrace the green - winter will be here soon enough!

Michele x

 

Geli here,   

I don't normally go crazy over green, but this new Limelight collection made me change sides. I love it and have used just about every scrap of the papers and Collectables I was given. They are perfect for masculine projects.

For my first layout, I cut out the section with botanical drawings from the front of the Arise paper(though they look great, they didn't go with the theme), flipped the paper over and used the back as a centre strip.

 

 It's all sticky-taped together on the back. 

The messy background was done with a splat stencil and Distress ink (Black Soot) applied with a blending tool. There is a bit of that in the top left corner too. 

The big splat is the perfect background for a cluster of die cuts from the Limelight collectables. An edge from the Classique frame kit's felt frame grounds it all nicely.

 

 I made a rough rosette from denim: Simply gather-stitch along one side of a 5cm wide strip of denim, pull the thread and gather-stitch until it forms a circle. Sew the 2 ends together and fray the outer edge.

 

 

In the middle sits a ric-rac rosette. Take 2 lengths of ric rac ribbon (on sale now) and braid them together. Just pretend you're braiding hair with only 2 bunches of hair. Some people sew them together, but I found the zig-zag patterns makes them stick together all by themselves. Once the whole piece is braided, roll them up and glue as you roll, keeping the circle flat like a disc. It's really easy. The ric-rac comes in 2m lengths and I made 2 large rosettes from that (this one is the smaller of the two).

A few small embellies finish it off: a boy charm (find a similar one here), a few cogs from the gadget gear cogs (these will be a must-have in my stash for a looooong time), a LOL tag and a glass cabochon. 
 

A vintage button fits in the cog charm perfectly! Actually, it is simply a worn-out button that was just the right shade of green, that's all. But vintage sounds much classier!

♥♥♥

The Limelight collection goes well with browns too!

 

For the next layout I made a grungy background by cutting out some cogs and painting over it with gesso, swiping some distress ink over it, masking, stamping, Inka Golding... I just kept going until it felt grungy enough. 
 

Unfortunately it was night-time and I didn't take photos of any of this.

 As you can see, the Limelight papers fit that perfectly too! I cut a wavy strip from the Today paper and paired it with the reverse (green) and some old yellow paper to match the lemon theme.
 

And just in case you're wondering why Joel is happily biting into a lemon, here is the reason:

GELI

LBC class - a 3 card extravaganza

This month's card class is a LBC card class.

Just like the LBD (little black dress) is a staple in any woman's wardrobe - so should a LBC (little black card) be a staple in every scrappers card stash.

In the class we will take 3 cards and alter them in 3 ways to produce 3 very different styles of card to be used for many different occasions.

3 different themes using the same colour - black! 

Time to party!
Inka gold, paint and distress stains together with charms, produce a stunning Birthday card.

 Soft foliage, flowers and metal leaf charms combine in this distressed vintage style card. Use for many different occasions - sympathy, female birthday, friendship - it's a soft and pretty card.

 

A stunning combination of black, silver and red - our final card is a sparkly masterpiece.

Silver sticker sheets embossed with festive greetings, some heat embossed pine needles, and a selection of beads and silver charms make this a truly elegant card.

Class Dates

Wednesday 19th March 11am

and

Sunday 6th April 11am

Cost of class is $17.50

 

We provide everything you require - except your adhesives - and please bring your basic tool kit.

Details of dates and times are available here in the Classes at my2angels section.

OTP Birthday Gift

As much as I LOVE it (and the birthday girl), this is one Birthday Gift I am not in a hurry to make again ...

What isn't there to love?? Get an eyeful of all those glittery sparkles of glass beads and silver thread entwined amongst handmade flowers - stunning aren't they?? - but making so many of them has removed any fingerprints my hot glue gun had left me!

 

So how did I make it?

Start by covering a length of wooden rod with some of our silver cup chain.  Adhere it to the rod with wonder tape.  I love the fact that the tape - whilst mega sticky - still lets you move it about to push the chain into place, if you don't get it straight enough first time.

Stick the rod into a pot and cover around it with fabric.

Then start to make the first of eleventy billion and one hand-made flowers (and no - I am not exaggerating and yes - it is a real number) instructions to follow for how to make the flowers - and add to your pot with assorted baubles, beads and gardenias.

 Now to face my fears!

(Don't understand how something small and rubbery can be so scary!)

Note it would be easier to use a polyfoam ball, but I was stuck at home for a few weeks unable to drive due to a crook back, so this was my compromise. 

Take yourself back to 'ye olde' kindy days and make up some homemade glue - this is the recipe I followed.  

 1 cup flour 1/3 cup sugar 1-1/2 cup water with 1 tsp white vinegar mixed in

 Now cover that horrible rubber thing.

I think I need this to help me ... just in case the horrible thing pops!

Now wait patiently for it to dry!  Not my strongest point - so time to make some flowers...

I have this gorgeous pink fabric (the sort used to make sari's) and using a very old flower die, I made a ridiculous amount of flowers (I lost count at 600 individual flowers) and I must note here to give a 

HUGE THANK YOU 

to Audrey - who has been cutting flowers on the cuttlebug for me instead of scrapping at Timeout Tuesday 

and of course my DD Angel for her contribution.

Here is how I made them  ...

WARNING - if you don't have a hot glue licence - keep band-aids and ice on hand!

Using the SAME size flowers. Glue and fold one flower in half.  I use my hot glue gun, as the glue gives you flexibility when pinching – don’t use too much glue, just a thin layer is needed.

Fold in half again and glue - then pinch.

Glue 3 pink flowers on the side, then glue the 2 silver flowers in the middle - as the photo shows - then glue the last 3 on the other side of the silver flowers. Or just glue all 6 together of the same colour, pinching them to shape as you go.

Glue some fibre wool to the back of each flower.

Now - start gluing them - all 600 plus - to your ball.

Pop in some glass beads (which catch the light beautifully) here and there for the sparkle factor.

and - finally - many hours later - ta da - one gorgeous birthday present.

 We have a sale on our rhinestone chain till the 15th March and over the coming weeks there are several projects where I will show you how to pretty much wrap them around anything to make it sparkle. It's just amazing what you can do with some sparkly chains...

Pop over here to the website to grab some bargin bling